Hand Washing 101^

Well, this morning, while Snapdragon was lazing in that sweet just-woke-up-and-nursed way that he does, I sucked it up and dealt with the fluffy laundry.

Today's routine went like this. (Tomorrow's might get pictures if I think of it.)

*Change baby-butt. There's no sense in leaving a wet diaper on a baby when you're about to wash diapers.

*Rinse entire bucket of diapers with Diaper Sprayer. I really love this particular gadget.

*Lunk sopping wet bucket of diapers out to wash tub in garage.

*Discover there is no plug for washtub in garage.

*Frown.

*Dump diapers into right side of washtub, place bucket to the left of them. (Just so you aren't surprised, it's an old plastic Tidy Cat liter bucket. So now if there are pictures at some point, you know.)

*Squeeze the rinse water out of diapers while filling bucket half full of HOT water over 1TBSP of Rockin' Green clothdiapers detergent.

*Grab ten diapers or covers at a time and place in bucket.

*Swirl around a bunch, rub and scrub them against themselves and one another until they seem to be showing no signs of anything other than the discoloration left by EBF poo. Basically, as thoroughly agitated and scrubbed as I can do with my bare hands and the occasional use of a scrub brush.

*Pile "washed" diapers again in the right side of the wash tub.

*Dump dirty water outside. (I didn't want to risk pouring it down the drain next to the just washed diapers, as it was pretty dirty looking at this point.)

*Rinse bucket out.

*Wring diapers.

*Spray diapers, individually, with HOT water.

*Wring diapers.

*Spray diapers with HOT water. Individually, again.

*Wring diapers.

*Spray diapers with HOT water, in a group.

*Wring diapers.

*Lug diapers through Mongoosine's room, my room, the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, and out to where my laundry rack is.

*Hang to sun the discoloration out, and to kill any nasty bacteria.

*Wait some 10 hours, then toss them in the dryer on Low to finish drying.

Observations:

It is too cold to dry hand washed diapers outside effectively or efficiently, despite my best wringing attempts.

I got a LOT more dirt out of the diapers than I would have expected, judging by how dark and creeptastic the wash water got.

Handwashing leads to very dry hands. I need to investigate non-latex gloves of some sort. I might even have some in the box of kitchen stuff from when, well, from before.

It was less gross than one would think.

They seem to have, post sunning, come just about as clean as being machine washed. So long as they don't repel, I think we're in business.

Alterations I intend to make:

I think I technically used just under 1 TBSP of Rockin' Green, and I need to bump it up a little tomorrow.

I plan to steralize, as best I can, the plunger to agitate the water. I hear it works really well and will save some wear and tear on my back.

Spouse found me a plug for the drain. It's a little small, but with a diaper over it, I'm sure I can manage this without the bucket, or at least I intend to try.

^101 refers not only to the educational aspect of this post as it pertains to one's clothdiapers wash routine, but also to the fact that this is my 101st blog post!